Finally, I am in Monteiro. I arrived here last night and had a Brazilian barbecue with the MCCers here. It was great to hang out with them, eat some great food, and attempt to speak Portuguese.

I didn't really get to see the city until this morning, but I love what I saw today. The streets here are quite wide by Brazilian standards (and probably by American standards as well). The city is also really clean and safe. I haven't figured out how to describe the terrain here, but it is beautiful. It's as if God took a little bit of American southwest, a little bit of the Badlands of South Dakota, and a little bit of the tropics, put them in a large can, and played Yahtzee with the contents. When he finished playing, he left the pieces where they were, and the land around Monteiro was formed.

I'm currently living at an MCC office/guesthouse in Monteiro with two other MCC workers. It's actually working out really great right now. We eat breakfast and supper together and do lunch on our own. It gives me an opportunity to be both independent and to live with others. I think I'll probably move in with a family in a month or so, but we'll see. I'm finding that any plans made in Brazil will be altered.

This morning I got to visit a subterranean dam outside Monteiro. So a subterranean dam is: a dam underneath the earth. Okay, that's really not helpful, but that's about all I know right now. The dam prevents underground water from flowing through a valley during the dry season. Using concrete, earth, and an enormous plastic tarp, people construct these dams to sequester water in one area. The advantage of this operation is that it allows many more plants to be grown than otherwise. I think I may play a role in the construction of more of these dams in the future, but I'm not sure what that will be.

And here's a picture of a random iguana we ran into today while checking out the dam:

This last weekend was filled with all kinds of excitement, from a beautiful beach at Porto de Galinhas to an attempted robbery in downtown Recife.

Last Saturday Mike, Erika, Andrea and I went two hours south of Recife to a beach at Porto de Galinhas. This beach is known for its natural pools created in the reefs when the tides go down. Soon after we arrived, we got on a small boat (see Exhibit A) and headed out to the natural pools. There were hundreds of small fish swimming around in the water. Mike and I swam a little with them and got to look at them under water (see Exhibit B ). It was fantastic.

Erika also enjoyed the beach, where she found a little hermit crab that she made friends with (Exhibit C). We spent the rest of the day at the beach swimming a bit in the ocean, throwing the frisbee around, and basically relaxing under an umbrella at the beach. The ocean's bright blue color provided a perfect backdrop the day.

Exhibit A: Boats used to take visitors to the natural pools.

Exhibit B: Mike and I swimming with the fish.

Exhibit C: Erika and her friend.

But this weekend wasn't all fun and games. This past Sunday I was walking with Andrea and Solange (cook at the MCC office) in downtown Recife when we started to cross one of Recife's many bridges. I saw another bridge that looked beautiful lit up by the streetlamps. I quickly snapped a picture and Solange told me to protect my camera, so I stuffed into my pocket and held tight to my backpack. Not more than 10 seconds later, we encountered 3 or 4 ten-year-olds. One of them tried to stop me from walking, but I simply walked around him. Another one attempted to grab my backpack and run. When I felt him pull, I said the first thing that came to mind, which was "Não Senhor!" (Senhor is a term reserved for elders; I'm not sure why I said it). I also looked back at him and gave him the meanest glare I could muster. I was really angry. The boys left without further incident, but I was still mad.

I was actually surprised at how mad I got. I didn't really have anything of exceptional value in my backpack, but I was angry that they had disrespected me like they had. As a pacifist, I talk about responding to violence using peace, but in the heat of the moment, emotions could easily get the best of a person. I'm not saying I was going to hit anyone, but I definitely felt a level of rage I've rarely experienced.

I later learned that the boys asked for a dollar, but we said we didn't have any. Also, sometimes groups of kids like these will have a gun or a sharp piece of glass and threaten to harm you. When my host family learned the story, they didn't really react as I expected. But then I realized that they didn't get anything and no one was harmed. Almost everyone here has a story of being robbed at one point or another. Recife is known for having one of the highest levels of crime in the country.

So I'm doing pretty well right now. I've let my anger over the whole incident pass, but I'm a little more cautious about walking around with money or valuables in my pockets.

I have just one more class of Portuguese today and then next Monday I'll be going to Monteiro where I'll begin my actual work. I'm excited to finally see the city that I've talked about for 6 months.

I've already briefly mentioned some of the foods and drinks I've had in Brazil, but here I want to focus on the culinary delites of Brazil.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll start with a picture. This picture is actually from my first meal of rice and beans here, but it typifies the type of meals I've been eating.

Typical Brazilian lunch meal. Clockwise from top: rice and black beans, farofa, pan-fried chicken, and salad. Fruit juice is the drink.

Todo dia eu como arroz e feijao. Mas quando eu nao como arroz e feijao, eu como feijao e arroz. (Every day I eat rice and beans. But when I don't eat rice and beans, I eat beans and rice.) Rice and beans form the backbone for every dinner (noon) meal here. I've been keeping track of the number of times I've been served a meal with rice and beans and it comes to 31 meals with rice and beans in 36 days. And it isn't just that my host family that eats rice and beans this much. As far as I can tell, everyone here eats rice and beans (of some sort) every day. My parents asked me what meal Americans eat all the time, and I can't think of anything. What do you think?

Next on the plate above is a flour/corn meal mixture called farofa. I haven't had it much, but it is often put on top of rice and beans. The chicken is one of many meats that is served here. They often put the meat in with the rice and beans. They might cook sausage or beef with the beans. They also have meats called charque and carne do sol here, which I think come from beef, but sometimes it's better not to know.

The drink for most meals is either a refrigeratante (a pop) or a fruit juice. There are basically only two pops here: Coke and guarana. Guarana is a fruit found in the Amazon, and the berries produce a juice used in the pop. It has a color like ginger ale, and the taste is delicious. The fruit juices here also are very good, however I've had my share of bad ones as well. The bad: suco natural, which contains spinach, apple, carrot, and other random things. It's supposed to be good for you. It better be, because there's no other reason to drink that stuff. Another healthy drink which is a little odd is an avocado milk shake. It's okay, but I'd prefer banana milk shakes. And then there are good juices: graviola, orange, lemon, line, and acerola just to name a few.

So that rounds out the foods and drinks in the picture, but a few more comments about eating could be helpful. My typical breakfast and supper consist of a piece of fluffy white bread with a hard crust and often a creamy spread called requeijao. The biggest meal of the day is always at lunch. Some people say that if they have beans for lunch, they aren't hungry for the rest of the day. But in my host family I will often have a fourth meal around 9:30 or 10. They'll break out a pizza, some pasta, or hamburgers. I'm not sure how much they are doing this just to appease me or if it's something they do anyway. Pizza is also quite different here, without nearly as much tomato sauce as American pizzas have. They will also put interesting foods on pizza such as peas, corn, hard-boiled eggs, or green beans.

In other news MCC had it's annual retreat this last weekend at a hotel resort about 30 minutes from Recife. It was really great to get to know some of the other MCCers more and relax at the resort. ...More to come later.

Much has happened in the past week including my first fishing experience in the Atlantic and my first time playing soccer in Brazil. I'll say that my fishing experience was typical for me: I didn't catch anything but lost 3 hooks. The soccer game actually went a little better. The Brazilians controlled the ball much better than me, but I found that I was a decent goalie since I got to use my hands.

But I want to focus on a trip that Mike, Erika, Andrea and I took to Brejo da Madre de Deus (Brejo for short) last week. Elizabeth (Betti) Szilassy has worked with MCC in Brazil for 25 years and is currently living and serving in Brejo, so we went to visit her and see what work she does.

But first we had to get there. Neither Erika nor Andrea knows how to drive a car, so it was up to Mike and I to drive the 2 1/2 hours from Recife to Brejo. As I mentioned previously traffic here is pretty crazy, so I was a little nervous about sharing the road with crazy drivers. But I was more nervous because the vehicle we were taking was a stick shift and my total experience driving a manual transmission vehicle amounted to half an hour on the roads in Moundridge. In the end I only stalled the vehicle a couple of times and actually enjoyed driving the manual transmission vehicle.

After we got to Brejo we headed towards a small village called Sao Paulo where the cistern project is in full force. Nearly every house in the village has a cistern to collect rainwater during the rainy season to save for the dry season. MCC helped construct some of these, but now the majority of the work is done by other organizations.

Here is a cistern that MCC constructed for Jose Miguel at his house.

Here is another newer type of cistern that is being constructed.

The majority of the farmers in Sao Paulo raised dairy cattle. One of the more advanced farms had a tank for storing milk and an electric milking machine. We were fortunate enough to be there at milking time, so we got to see the process in action.

Alfonso Aguiar used the milking machine to milk his 20 cattle twice a day, at 4 am and 4 pm. I got to help put the machine on the tits of one cow, but as I was doing it, the cow next to me decided it was a good time to relieve herself, so I had to wait until she finished her business before I preceded with mine. Mike has a pretty good picture at http://picasaweb.google.com/spee.mike/SALTOurVisitToBrejoDaMadreDeDeus#5251518831426587410.

The next day Betti asked us if we wanted to go on a hike to see some ancient Indian rock paintings. We all agreed, so we headed up a path to one of the large rocks surrounding Brejo. We quickly realized that "the path" was not as distinguishable as we had hoped. Even when we did find it, the path was so overgrown with thorns and bushes that we had to proceed pretty slowly. I felt like I needed a machete to clear a way through the vegetation. By the time we got to the top of the rock, we were pretty exhausted and our legs had taken a beating from all the thorns. But we made it. We eventually found the rock paintings which were cool, but the entire hike was more of an experience than anything else.

Here we are on the top of the rock with a view of Brejo in the background. Does this look like Brazil to you?

So that was our trip to Brejo. Life is pretty good here, but the language is taking a while to learn. I have just three more weeks in Recife before I go to Monteiro on October 24. After that all my language learning will be done outside a classroom.